Browse previous selections from the Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Burden of Peace
<p><em>Burden of Peace</em> follows Guatemala's first female attorney general, Claudia Paz y Paz. <em>Burden of Peace</em> is an epic tale of personal sacrifice, hard-fought change, and hope.</p>
Charlie's Country
Recounting Charlie's journey from tragedy to triumph with rigorous simplicity, director Rolf de Heer wisely relies on the magnetic presence of his star David Gulpilil to anchor every frame of this lovely, soulful film.
Deep Run
Growing up transgender in rural North Carolina, Cole has remained remarkably upbeat despite rejection from his family, school and church.
Democrats
Over the course of more than three years, director Camilla Nielsson gained exclusive access to the inner circles of politics in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
Drawing the Tiger
Drawing the Tiger tells the story of a rural Nepalese family that has lived for generations as subsistence farmers, today surviving on less than a dollar per day.
E-TEAM
When atrocities are committed in countries held hostage by ruthless dictators, Human Rights Watch sends in the Emergencies Team, a collection of fiercely intelligent individuals who document war crimes and report them to the world.
Evaporating Borders
A visual essay in five parts, Evaporating Borders is told through a series of vignettes that explore the lives of asylum seekers and political refugees on the island of Cyprus.
First to Fall
First to Fall is an intimate story of friendship, sacrifice, and the madness of war. It bears witness to the irreversible transformation of two friends, and the price they pay for their convictions.
Gett - The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
In Israel, civil marriage and civil divorce don't exist.
Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story
Former US Navy SEAL Chris Beck embarks on a new mission as Kristin Beck. Kristin's journey in search of the American ideals that she protected have a whole new meaning as she lives her life.
Of Men and War
The warriors in Of Men and War have come safely home to the United States after serving their country in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they are unable to escape the battlefield that rages in their own minds.
Rosewater
In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters in the country with access to US media, he made an appearance on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart". The interview was inten
Storm in the Andes
Josefin grew up in Sweden hearing a family myth about how her Peruvian aunt, Augusta, died in armed struggle for poor people in Peru. Augusta La Torre created the violent Maoist guerilla Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path, together with her husband Abima
Syria: Bullets and Countershots
For the Abounaddara Collective, "films should burst out like bullets to break the silence. They should tell the Syrian story with great narrative intensity and make the viewer look at reality differently."
Teaching Ignorance
TEACHING IGNORANCE asks: How do the Palestinian, Israeli Arab, and Israeli Jewish educational systems teach the history of their peoples?
The Dream of Shahrazad
Filmmaker Francois Verster explores how music and storytelling can serve as an outlet for citizens to process political upheaval.
The Fear of 13
In 1982, Nick Yarris was sentenced to death for a brutal crime.
The Look of Silence
<p>The<em> Look of Silence</em> is Joshua Oppenheimer’s powerful companion piece to the Oscar®-nominated <em>The Act of Killing</em> This unprecedented film initiates and bears witness to the collapse of fifty years of silence.</p>
The One That Got Away
In 1944, teenagers Thomas & Edith were interned by the Nazis in Budapest. Alone and afraid, they fell in love.
The Salt of the Earth
The photographer Sebastião Salgado was a refugee in the 1970s, fleeing the military dictatorship in Brazil. He became a global wanderer, photographing epochal events of violence and displacement, including Rwanda, Bosnia, and the war in Iraq.
The Shelter
Accomplished documentarian Fernand Melgar is renowned for his powerful investigations into the injustices of Swiss society. His latest offering, The Shelter, charts a cold winter spent at an emergency shelter for homeless migrants in the wealthy city o
The Trials of Spring
I knew that people would one day take to the street, and I knew that I would participate. - Hend Nafea
The Trials of Spring: A Multimedia Initiative
<p><em>The Trials of Spring</em> is a multimedia initiative that aims to elevate the stories of women. This program will feature a selection of short films and a discussion with the project's multi-disciplinary team.</p>
The Yes Men Are Revolting
For the last 20 years, notorious activists the Yes Men have staged outrageous and hilarious hoaxes to draw international attention to corporate crimes against humanity and the environment. Armed with nothing but quick wits and thrift-store suits, these
This Is My Land
If change happens one person at a time, by opening minds and replacing hatred with understanding, what will the future hold for the next generation of Israeli and Palestinian children?
Uyghurs, Prisoners of the Absurd
October 2001: As US-led forces invade Afghanistan in search of Osama Bin Laden, 22 members of China's Uyghur minority happen to be in the country. These Turkish-speaking Muslims are fleeing repressive authorities in Beijing, which view them as dangerou
Virunga
A powerful combination of investigative journalism and nature documentary, Virunga is the incredible true story of a group of courageous people risking their lives to build a better future in a part of Africa the world's forgotten, and a gripp
We Were Rebels
WE WERE REBELS tells the story of Agel, a former child soldier who returns home to help build South Sudan – the youngest country in the world.
An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker
The latest drama from award-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanovic enlists a cast of non-professionals to reconstruct a harrowing personal ordeal that became a national scandal.
Before Snowfall
How far would you go to restore your family's honour? As the oldest son in his household, Siyar confronts that question with a vengeance after his older sister, Nermin, flees an arranged marriage, and he must atone for the slight.
Big Men
A cautionary tale about the toll of American oil investment in West Africa, Big Men reveals the secretive worlds of both corporations and local communities in Nigeria and Ghana.
Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus
Director Madeleine Sackler goes behind the scenes with the Belarus Free Theatre, an acclaimed troupe of imaginative and subversive performers who, in a country choked by censorship and repression, defy Europe's last remaining dictatorship.
For Those Who Can Tell No Tales
Jasmila Zbanic's For Those Who Can Tell No Tales follows an Australian tourist as she discovers the silent legacy of wartime atrocities in a seemingly idyllic town on the border of Bosnia and Serbia.
My Child
What happens when your child comes out to you? My Child answers this question as it introduces a courageous and inspiring group of mothers and fathers in Turkey, who are parents of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.
Nelson Mandela: The Myth and Me
South African filmmaker Khalo Matabane was an idealistic teenager with fanciful ideas about a post-apartheid era of freedom and justice when the great icon of liberation Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990. In a personal odyssey encompassin
Out in the Night
One hot August night in 2006, in New York's Greenwich Village, a group of young African-American lesbian friends are violently and sexually threatened by an older man. Out in the Night uncovers how their lives leading up to that night compell
Private Violence
Private Violence explores a simple but deeply disturbing fact of American life: the most dangerous place for a woman in America is her own home.
Return to Homs
Filmed between August 2011 and August 2013, Return to Homs is a remarkably intimate portrait of a group of young revolutionaries in the city of Homs in western Syria. They dream of their country being free from President Bashar al-Assad and fi
Scheherazade's Diary
This engaging tragicomic documentary follows women inmates through a 10-month drama therapy/theater project set up in 2012 by director Zeina Daccache at the Baabda Prison in Lebanon.
Sepideh - Reaching for the Stars
Sepideh is a young Iranian woman who dares to dream—of a future as an astronaut.
Siddharth
In New Delhi, 12-year-old Siddharth is sent by his father Mahendra to work in a factory in another province to help support their family. Siddharth is supposed to come home in one month for the Diwali festival. When he fails to return or call, his dist
The Beekeeper
The Beekeeper relates the touching story of Ibrahim Gezer, a Kurdish beekeeper from southeast Turkey, and his unusual experience of integration into the seemingly conservative heart of today's Switzerland.
The Green Prince
This real life thriller tells the story of one of Israel's most prized intelligence sources: the son of top Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Youssef, Mosab Hassan Youssef.
The Homestretch
The Homestretch follows three homeless teens in Chicago as they fight to stay in school, graduate, and build a future.
The Missing Picture
Director Rithy Panh won the Un Certain Regard prize at last year's Cannes for this startlingly original work, which uses handmade clay figurines and detailed dioramas to recount the suffering of Panh's family at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime foll
The Mulberry House
After 10 years in Scotland, Sara Ishaq travels back to her childhood home of Yemen and takes her camera along. She hopes to feel at home in the place that was once so close to her heart, but the complications soon become clear.
The Square
From the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-long dictatorship in 2011 to the military's removal of Egypt's first democratically elected president in 2013, we follow a group of Egyptian activists as they confront the authorities and security forces to
The Unknown Known
Former United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, discusses his career in Washington D.C. from his days as a congressman in the early 1960s to planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
To Be Takei
From the iconic role of Sulu on Star Trek to Howard Stern and Facebook fame, George Takei's sharp eye, coupled with his wicked sense of humor, continues to challenge the status quo well into the 21st century.
Watchers of the Sky
Watchers of the Sky interweaves five stories of remarkable courage, compassion, and determination, while setting out to uncover the forgotten life of Raphael Lemkin—the man who created the word "genocide" and believed the law could protect the
99%—The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film
In September 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement propelled issues of economic inequality into the spotlight. 99% - The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film goes behind the scenes of the movement, revealing what happened and why.
Highway of Tears
Narrated by Nathan Fillion, Matt Smiley's hard-hitting documentary chronicles the notorious, decades-long string of murders and disappearances of young Aboriginal women along British Columbia's Highway 16, and how the systemic racism that defined their